New Girl in Town [open]

[Guest]

From what little about South City she had heard, Jocelyn was told that the Bazaar was the single greatest place to find anything and everything. What better place to buy amenities for her new apartment? With her new (and greatly improved) paycheck, she'd be able to buy plenty instead of just scrounging by. Perhaps she'd be able to buy new automail parts too, maybe some more advance construction textbooks. She was still in full military uniform, the blue garb ruffled and flapped with the strong wind blowing through the almost alleyway. Her only problem was that...she couldn't find a damn thing. There were so many people around and so many stalls and tents, she had no idea where to start. She bumped and slid through the congested crowd; perhaps it would've been better to come during lunch hour, but she didn't have time. Only her second day and she had already seen a lot of interesting things. She saw an Ishvallen animal merchant dressed in a silken white robe with a turban on his head. Only it wasn't a turban, but a boa constrictor curled atop his head. She'd rarely seen snakes like that outside books and it almost drove her to buying one. Almost.

Well, she'd been here fifteen minutes and not found ONE furniture salesman. The sun was hanging low and put off a warm, hazy orange that brightened and intensified the golden tint of her hair. She was staring at it, thinking of a memory from her front line days. There was an orange tree her and her squad would sit around and prepare for the next skirmish. They always prepared in silence and Jocelyn would always take an orange of the tree for good luck. They never had a death in the squad, even before she learned alchemy.

SMACK

And then the memory was gone. Someone had bumped into her shoulder and threw her off balance. She took a second to adjust her uniform and turned around with a snap, her blank expression turned to a sort of annoyance. She saw him very clearly since he looked with a guilty look in his eye and kept going. Jocelyn immediately shoved her hand into her pocket. Her wallet was gone. Oh, now it was on. She doubled back the way she came and started after the man. He was pushing others out of the way as he broke into a run. Jocelyn inwardly called him an idiot; he was clearing a path. She started running, putting boots to brick as she started to run, then yelled at him, "Come back, you fucking thief!" He could run, but he wouldn't outrun Jocelyn, she was sure of that as she put on her fingerless gloves, the transmutation circle blazing ebony against the white cloth.

[Xan]

Doubtlessly the thief assumed that his escape would be fairly easily accomplished, and that he would be able to loot the contents of the wallet in some other location. After all, pickpocketing was merely apart of the local culture of South City, particularly in the Bazaar. What he had not expected however, was the fact that he had chosen the wrong target and the wrong time of day. As he pushed through the crowd in an attempt to escape, he happened to attempt to push part someone wearing all black who was much harder to move than the others in the crowd. In fact, when he attempted to move him, he found that the man would not budge. When he tried to go around him, the man in black merely sidestepped into his way, looking ever in another direction. After about seven long seconds of this, the thief attempted to punch the man in black in the face to move him. The fist however, never met flesh.

Xanthus Icarus raised his left hand and caught the man's wrist, causing the would-be thief to go into a near panic. The other fist was launched, and was caught in the same manner, at which point the pressure began to be exerted. The Ishvallan merely began to grip the other man's wrists, but if one were to listen closely they would have noted that things were grinding together inside of the flesh. In fact, they might have noted that things seemed to be making rather uncomfortable and frankly unnatural sounds within the man's wrists. By the time that Jocelyn would manage to reach Xanthus and the thief, said pickpocket would already be on one knee with a pained expression on his face.

What a strange image they must have made, Xanthus and this thief on the ground in front of him. The thief was dressed as expected considering what he was doing, but Icarus, appeared to be dressed for an occasion that was not occurring in the Baazar. A black button-up shirt fully buttoned except for two at the top, dark blue jeans, and shined black boots composed Xan's clothing for the day, with the addition of one long black trench coat. Through the sunglasses that obscured his eyes, Xanthus looked down at the thief with an expressionless face.

[Guest]

Just follow the path the idiot followed and she'd find him. But she was losing ground. Her gold locks smacked that light, evenly tanned skin of her face as her aqua marine eyes darted around the crowds, keeping track of the thief's possible routes. She was getting tired of this chase though; she had much better things she could be doing with her time, but as if she'd let him get away. Her hands were low as she ran, clapping together with a light smack. Her body crouched as she ran as well, about to smack her hands to the ground, but...the man had stopped. He was taken by his thieving wrist by a black clad, sun-kissed, silver haired man that LOOKED to have stepped out of the Matrix. But he seemed to have the man subdued.

Hell no! This was Jocelyn's business; she didn't need his or anyone else's help. She stopped immediately and pocketed her hands to take her gloves off. She moved with curt steps and straight posture and, once she got right beside the thief, brought her fist into the back of his skull. He went limp after a 3 second delay. The grip on her wallet was loosened and she bent over and picked it up. She pocketed her hands again as she bent herself up again, nodding to the coated gentleman, staring at herself in the reflection of the sunglasses he was wearing. She cleared her throat, face straight, and spoke, "As much as I appreciated the help, I had him. Though I guess he ran into you at a bad time. Nice to meet you." Jocelyn stood there for a moment, shadow looming over the unconscious body of the thief. Would he be OK?...yeeaaaah, he was fine.

[Xan]

The grip that Xanthus had on the man was as iron, making escape nothing more than an impossible dream. Even the thief was beginning to accept that fact until something made him go absolutely frenzied for a swift moment. Xanthus did not need to look to know that the owner of the wallet had arrived, but he did so anyway and for that was given an excellent view of a woman bringing a powerful fist to the back of the head of the man whom he had caught. Icarus could almost have timed the man's body to the point of going limp, but he did not bother, instead dropping him like a sack of potatoes to the ground. One look at the back of the man's head told Xan that a concussion was inevitable, and likely would serve as a valued lesson; not every woman in South City was a good target for thievery.

With a slight shake of the head, Xanthus turned towards the woman who insisted that she had not required assistance and raised an eyebrow. "A bad time? No, I just so happen to know a thief when I see one. If anything, he caught me on a good day. And speaking of catching, are you sure that you had him?" A slight smile made the question less serious and more rhetorical, but honestly Xanthus would not have been surprised if the woman in front of him answered. At the word 'him,' the Ishvallan gave the thief a little nudge with his foot, to which the thief did not make a single response. Completely unconscious? A stronger nudge, with again no results swiftly followed after. "KO. That was some punch, Ms...?" The sentence trailed away into a question that was this time not quite as rhetorical as the last.

[Csilla Angelis]

{BUMP}

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